Senior officials of the Himachal forest department have announced that they plan to develop 136 sites in the forest area for ecotourism. The main objective, they say, is to decongest overcrowded city tourist destinations and bring the tourists closer to nature.

This ecotourism project will offer activities like trekking, camping, rock climbing, and motor biking as well as food vans offering local cuisine. At the same time, this project also aims to create income opportunities for rural youth with jobs like travel guides and cooks and other sundry ad hoc occupations.

I would ask the Himachal Forest Department to see the consequences of inviting unbridled tourism. In this case, religious tourism, in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, has led to thirty km long traffic jams going up to the holy site of Kedarnath, so-called 'pilgrims' tanking up on alcohol in the holy town, and lots of incidents of unruly behaviour.

Or take a look at the recently minted Dham at Kainchi in Almora. Choked traffic along all mountain roads, causing endless misery to local residents, drunk policemen misbehaving with local women, discarded food and plastic litter strewn along kilometres of roads going up to Kainchi and down again.

Is this the tourism you had in mind? You want to earn revenue and wreck your state? Your call.

The vandals going up as tourists will be the same.

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/himachal/to-promote-ecotourism-himachal-forest-dept-to-lease-out-51-of-136-identified-sites-soon/amp/?utm=relatedarticles